Momma!
by sweet-and-simple
Summary: When Sawada Tsunayoshi had been seven years old, his mom had taken him and his little adopted brother to the park.


When Sawada Tsunayoshi had been seven years old, his mom had taken him and his little adopted brother to the park. He had been wearing a new outfit! It was orange and the shirt was sleeveless but it had a hood and his pants had four pockets and everyone thought he looked really cute.

He told his mom, shyly, that when he grew up, he'd always look cute like this. At least people weren't frowning at his clumsiness. It was something he wanted to get used to.

"Oh my, you want to be a fashion designer?" Nana had given him a big smile and had kissed his forehead. "My boy on the TV screen dressing supermodels and rock stars!"

She seemed to like the idea so he wouldn't stop talking about it. He'd make outfits out of… out of… What were outfits made out of? He tucked his arms into his shirt, turned it around so the hood was in front of him, and squinted at the tag.

It was made of polyester. How was he supposed to say that? "Pol-yester," he said proudly.

"Poly-ester," his mom corrected with a happy hum.

"Poly-ester!"

And then they were at the park and all the parents were fawning over his new outfit… and his baby brother. But that wasn't anything new, everyone thought Lambo was cute because he had a lot of curly hair and really big green eyes and a freckle on his cheek. For some reason, they even liked it when he cried.

He couldn't understand why. It made him want to cry too, listening to Lambo scream everyone's ears off.

Mom stayed loyally by the stroller as he went off to the sandbox. He didn't like getting sand on him, but his mom got upset when he didn't play, so he did what he could. He was scared of heights, so he couldn't do the monkey bars, swing set, slide, or teeter-totter. He didn't like going fast so he didn't go on the merry-go-round. The bouncy spring toys always made him anxious and he couldn't play with the other kids because they made fun of him.

So sandbox it was.

Except it wasn't empty.

Tsuna stuffed a fist in his mouth nervously as he eyeballed the kid burying a baseball bat. What could he do? Mom always said to introduce himself first. He had to remember what introduce meant before he shuffled forward, just outside the sandbox. The kid looked up at him and smiled friendly-like.

He got a little courage back. "H-Hi… My name's Tsuna, can I… can I play with you?" Or just in the sandbox. It was always a little too much to hope for when wanting to play with others. He was too clumsy and stupid.

"Sure!" The boy extended a hand and Tsuna stared at it. "Name's Yamamoto! Yamamoto Takeshi! You can call me Takeshi 'cause I think we're going to be great friends!"

He shakily took the hand and Takeshi pulled him into the sandbox. He tripped over the ledge and fell face-down into the sand.

Takeshi laughed, but it didn't sound mean. He helped Tsuna dust off and then they continued to bury his baseball bat and baseball.

"Who're you here with?" Yamamoto asked.

"My mom and baby brother."

"Really? Where?" He pointed and Yamamoto followed his finger. "Your mom looks really nice." He smiled…

And then he started crying.

Tsuna had no clue what to do, so he just did what his mom always did whenever he started crying. He hugged Takeshi and petted his hair, feeling his own sniffles coming on.

"I miss my momma!" Takeshi wailed.

"I miss mine too!" Tsuna looked desperately at his mom but she was too busy talking to one of the other moms about Lambo.

"B-but your mom's right there. Mine's gone."

"Gone where?"

"P-pops said that she's gone to a better place."

"That's where my hamster w-went."

"She's never coming back!"

Yamamoto had a tight grip. He wasn't letting go of Tsuna for anything, even if Tsuna was holding him too, and it was starting to freak Tsuna out. So his sniffles turned into cries and they were both loud enough to make his mom notice them.

"WHY ARE YOU TWO CRYING?"

Tsuna's wails were cut off in terror as he looked up and up into the face of a white-haired boy. He looked older… and angry. And he was _loud_.

Yamamoto looked up too. He didn't seem to have Tsuna's sense of fear. "M-miss our mommas," he blubbered.

"I'LL HELP YOU FIND THEM!"

"You can't! My momma's gone to a better place a-and his momma's over there!"

The older boy seemed to have the wisdom they as younger boys didn't have. "Oh… A 'better place'?" He scowled. "THEN I WILL BE YOUR MOMMA!"

"But you're a boy!" Tsuna said. He'd never seen a boy momma.

Well, that one time, daddy had brought home a _man_ momma and he'd brought his kid too and the man daddy and they had all had dinner, but their kid had been too young to play with. He'd crawled after Lambo instead of paying attention to Tsuna.

But boys weren't men. They were close, his daddy said he was always on the _cusp_ of being a full-grown man with manly adventures and many damsels in distress (or heroes, but he hadn't told Tsuna what that meant. His parents were always saying things like that, like "Oh, you'll find the perfect girl someday… or boy… We love you, Tsuna", or "You gotta be strong to show off to the ladies, son! Or the guys. They'll appreciate it too!" Tsuna wasn't sure what they were getting at with all of that).

"I CAN BE A MOMMA!" He glared at Tsuna and Tsuna cowered behind Yamamoto, who looked very sad.

"Y-you can't be my momma… You don't look like her. Or sound like her. Y-you're not her!"

His mom had apparently decided that they were taking care of themselves because she wasn't coming over. She just smiled at the big boy and then went back to the babysitters and mommies and some of the daddies.

Tsuna watched her turn away with a broken heart.

"I've got an extreme idea!" The big boy turned and left. Tsuna and Takeshi watched him go to the slide where a carrot-haired girl was coming down. He took her by the hand when she landed safely and brought her over. "My sister will be your mom! TO THE EXTREME! And I'll be an awesome UNCLE!"

He pointed at Tsuna. "You're gonna be the BABY!"

"I-I'm a boy! Not a baby!" Lambo was a baby. But mom wouldn't let them play with him. She said he was a fragile "infant". Infants were babies.

"You'll be her son!" The big boy yelled over Tsuna.

Yamamoto sniffled and reattached himself to his "momma". The big boy grabbed Tsuna, picked him up, and began rocking him back and forth, screaming a lullaby into his ears.

He started crying.

"MOMMA!" The big boy shouted at the girl. "Your baby is crying! WHAT DO I DO TO THE EXTREME?"

The girl thoughtfully tapped her chin with her finger and then smiled brightly. "Check his diaper!"

Tsuna wasn't wearing a diaper. He was wearing boxers, with little Hamtaro designs on it. His "uncle" pulled down his pants and boxers and glared. "Nothing there!"

Tsuna hid his face in his hands, tears scolding his cheeks. The boys at the merry-go-round were laughing at him and so were the girls. His mom was too busy with Lambo to notice! Tsuna was just… so embarrassed!

"HEY! YOU GUYS OVER THERE! STOP LAUGHING AT MY NIECE – "

"Nephew," the girl corrected softly.

"NEPHEW OR I'LL COME OVER THERE AND PADDLE YOU!"

Yamamoto stood defiantly to his feet. "Yeah! Me too! No one laughs at my friend!"

The girl helped him pull his pants and underwear back up because he was shaking too hard to do it himself.

"What's with all the noise?"

He hadn't been there a moment ago. Tsuna knew he hadn't been.

But sitting on top of the monkey bars was another boy. He had slanting eyes and pale skin and black hair. He was wearing a black T-shirt and sweat pants. Tsuna's eyes were attracted to the woody sticks he was holding. They had handles on them and were smooth and straight, so he hadn't just picked them off the ground, but Tsuna had no clue what they were.

Were they clubs?

He hoped not. Trolls carried clubs and trolls weren't nice. His mommy told him that all the time and his daddy always said you had to bop a troll's nose before they went away.

"HIBARI!" the big boy yelled. Tsuna didn't like all the yelling. "Those kids are making fun of – what's your name?"

"Ts-Ts-Tsu…"

"Name's Tsuna," Takeshi offered. "I'm Yamamoto Takeshi."

"My name is Kyoko!" said the girl.

"RYOHEI!" introduced the big boy. Then he turned back to Hibari who was glaring down at them. "THEY WERE MAKING FUN OF TSUNA!"

"Stop yelling or I'll hit you to death."

Teeth were flashed. Tsuna stared at them and missed completely what the boy had said except for the "to death" part. "HIIIEE! Please don't bite me to death!"

There was silence.

"But he said hit," Yamamoto said, looking confused.

"It was definitely hit!" Ryohei agreed.

Kyoko just continued hugging Yamamoto.

"No…" Hibari thought about it for a moment. "It's bite. From now on, it's 'bite you to death'." Then he seemed to think about all the things that could go with that and a mean grin spread across his face.

Tsuna whimpered.

"It's not our fault!" cried one of the boys at the merry-go-round. "He's no-good-Tsuna! He can't do anything." There was a chorus of agreement and Tsuna stared ashamedly at his feet. "He trips over everything and he's too scared to do anything!"

"Not true!" Yamamoto argued. "Tsuna's not scared of anything except Ryohei!"

This didn't seem to be going well. Tsuna looked fearfully on, not sure what was about to happen, but knowing it wasn't going to be anything good.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"EXTREME YEAH!"

Kyoko was frowning. "Big brother – "

"I BET TSUNA'S SO BRAVE, HE'LL DO WHAT NONE OF YOU WOULD DO!"

"What's that?"

Ryohei lifted Tsuna up by his hoodie and showed him off to the bullies. "He's gonna go to the top of the monkey bars and hug Hibari! TO THE EXTREME!"

Horrified silence hung in the air for a whole minute.

"No, he's not," Hibari said coolly.

"No I'm not!" he agreed just a second after.

"YES, YOU ARE."

"You can do it," Yamamoto said.

"He can't do it!" growled the bullies. They looked scared.

"I don't think Hibari's as scary as he lets people think," Kyoko hummed.

"I don't wanna go up there!" he sniffled. "I'm scared of heights!" And Hibari was waving those club-like things in the air and it didn't look welcoming.

"I'll bite you to death."

"HIIEEE!"

Ryohei was pulling him towards the monkey bars and before he could fight him, he had shoved him halfway up the ladder. He grabbed onto the nearest ring and refused to let go. He kept his eyes closed. He didn't want to look down at the ground or up at Hibari's glare. He didn't want to look at the bullies either.

"You can do it, Tsuna!" Yamamoto said.

"You can do this!" echoed Kyoko.

"GO, TSUNA, GO!"

"MOMMMYYYYYY!"

But she wasn't listening. She just threw him a smile and then went back to her conversation. All kids for themselves.

"Go, Tsuna, go! Go, Tsuna, go! Go, Tsuna, go!" Cheered Yamamoto. Ryohei and Kyoko followed him and they began screaming together.

"Fall, no-good Tsuna! Fall, no-good Tsuna!" countered the bullies.

Hibari didn't say a peep and it was him Tsuna was most scared of.

"Go, Tsu – look out!"

Tsuna looked through one eye just in time to see Hibari's club-like thingie coming down at him.

What would most kids do? Fall. And he was falling. And his head hurt. But he had a grip on Hibari's weapon and when the weapon began to fall with him, so did Hibari. Hibari didn't look happy about that, as he was pulled over the edge of the monkey bars.

Tsuna grabbed onto him anyway, out of sheer terror. "HIIIEEE – gah!" Now his back hurt. A lot. It was really hard to breathe.

He gasped for air and fought back the sniffles. His hands twisted in Hibari's shirt as the older boy came back to his senses and started glaring down at him.

There was dead silence, aside from the parents who were finally realizing that something bad was going on.

"He completed half of the bet, I guess," Yamamoto said.

"The SCARIER half of the bet," agreed Ryohei.

"Tsuna, are you okay?" asked Kyoko.

Tsuna stuffed his face in Hibari's shoulder. "N-no!"

And then Hibari hit him with his club-thingie.

Author's Note: I was going to write more to this, but then it just didn't work out that way… Just some children humor!


End file.
